Society welcomes dental recovery plan but flags absence of contract reform

The promise of funding and the implementation of measurable outcomes is pivotal to ensuring that, at last, the beleaguered NHS dental health services get the support needed to address the crisis in oral health in the UK. However, the society has noted that there is an absence of a dental contract reform proposal to enable this.

Claire Stevens, BSPD spokesperson, said, “This long-awaited plan includes some measures to tackle the crisis in children’s oral health. However, we cannot see a plan to review and revise the dental contract, which is central to kick-starting the UK's dental recovery. Is this the ‘elephant-in-the-room’? For too long, we have had podium announcements, which sound good but are actually unworkable on the ground. We have been calling for clinically informed policies with measurable outputs. The current dental contract is not fit for purpose, and reform is long overdue.